By now, all of you should know that Reverend Anthony derives no enjoyment from any game ever concieved. Ever. His reviews are absolutely brutal in every aspect, and don't coincide whatsoever with the rating system he supposedly follows.
But the reason I bring up this person is because of his most recent review: Mass Effect.
He gave the game the highest score I've ever seen him give, a 7.0. He starts off the review by saying the only way to enjoy Mass Effect is by lowering your expectations.
He blasts the game for several good reasons, but one of his gripes is that the promise of a conversation system that would be affected based on when you interrupted, and other things that were promised or hyped but never hit fruition.
I ask, is this fair? Should a game be given a lower score because it didn't do something that someone said it would? Or should it be based on its own merits?
Fable is a game that is consistently talked about as far as this goes. Peter Monyleux needs to shut his trap, we all know that. But, just because Fable doesn't have trees growing in real time and other such things, does that make the game worse? Not necessarily.
The average gamer has no idea that this feature was ever supposed to be implemented into the game, and thus will not be aware that it is missing, and their enjoyment won't be affected. The average gamer has no idea of these sorts of things, so should the overall score of the game be lowered? Of course not. Hype also should not factor into the game, even if it does, and it definitely does. Assassin's Creed got hyped to hell, and that is the only justification for the several 10s it got from various publications. Kowtowing to the public and the hype.
But then there are some publications that almost seem to go directly against the hype. If the hype says this, then they will do their best to bash the hell out of the game. Reverend Anthony is one of these people. He seems to take anything with any amount of hype in it, and tear it to shreds just because it had hype.
And that's fucking bullshit.
Regardless, as far as I'm concerned, what a company promises and hype don't change the game itself. A game should be based on its own merits. If it lacks a feature or two, big deal. That doesn't make a difference in the long run.
What do you think? Do you agree that reviews should be based on a game's own merits? Or should hype and the like play a factor?
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And those things are going to impact the review, whether the reviewer talks about them or not. Reverend Anthony would have given ME a score of 7. Period. Because that's what he thought the game deserved.
Personally, if someone is going to be taking those other things into consideration in their review, then I'm glad to see them admitting to such in the review. It gives me the opportunity to say, "Oh, okay, you know, I never really cared that much about those features, so I'll probably like the game even more."
As it is, any careful review should certainly weigh the marketing claims against the actual game as delivered. I don't believe fail to deliver on hype (which is only partially in control of the developer/publisher) should affect the score given, but it's difficult to say for any game and reviewer in particular that things would have been different with or without the hype machine that wasn't/was behind a game.
I can has preview button?
But let me say this: Mass Effect is one of the best games I've ever played, but a 7/10 score sounds just about right to me. The video game media has inflated review scores to the point where they have about as much value as a single peso in the World Bank.
I repeat, I LOVED playing Mass Effect, but c'mon... anyone who thinks it should rate higher than a 7/10 is either fooling themselves or completely lost to the VG media's artificially inflated review system.
however, every person sees things differently. what he saw you might have missed, or vice versa. so he's wrong on a few points in his review, and he's right about some. i don't agree with anyone giving it a score below 8, but i can see why those people didn't enjoy this game.
but it is puzzling when reviewers tend to not even mention fundamental things in the game that makes it what is, just to justify their score. maybe the reviewer didn't see those things, or maybe that person had already made up his mind about what to think in advance. you can never pin-point this to single issues that might color ones review on a game.
reviews are interesting because you can apply every psychological method on them and write a 50-page report about why this or that didn't got mentioned, or how this and that colored the person's experience.
also, the scores stays. don't take away the numbers. we will always bitch about something. thats what we're here for
And from everything I read in Rev's review, the score matched up perfectly with his actual complaints and praises about the game, so while he did address that the game was overhyped, I do not think he deducted points for that, or else it would have surely been lower.